"H'm! And did he write your petition, too? I suppose it was he who discovered the flaws in the building. The beams were not rightly put in?" "He did! I know it for a fact! The dog! He read it aloud in here and boasted, 'Now I have caused Petunikoff some loss!'" "Ye--es . . . Well, then, do you want to be reconciled?" "To be reconciled?" The soldier lowered his head and thought. "Ah! This is a hard life!" said he, in a querulous voice, scratching his head. "One must learn by experience, Petunikoff reassured him, lighting a cigarette. "Learn . . . It is not that, my dear sir; but don't you see there is no freedom? Don't you see what a life I lead? "I live in fear and trembling . . . I am refused the freedom so desirable to me in my movements, and I fear this ghost of a teacher will write about me in the papers. Sanitary inspectors will be called for . . . fines will have to be paid . . . or else your lodgers will set fire to the place or rob and kill me . . . I am powerless against them. They are not the least afraid of the police, and they like going to prison, because they get their food for nothing there." "But then we will have them turned out if we come to terms with you," promised Petunikoff. "What shall we arrange, then?" asked Vaviloff sadly and seriously. "Tell me your terms." "Well, give me the six hundred mentioned in the claim." "Won't you take a hundred roubles?" asked the merchant calmly, looking attentively at his companion, and smiling softly. "I will not give you one rouble more" . . . he added. After this, he took out his eyeglasses and began cleaning them with his handkerchief. Vaviloff looked at him sadly and respectfully. The calm face of Petunikoff, his gray eyes and clear complexion, every line of his thickset body betokened self-confidence and a well-balanced mind. Vaviloff also liked Petunikoff's straightforward manner of addressing him without any pretensions, as if he were his own brother, though Vaviloff understood well enough that he was his superior, he being only a soldier. Looking at him, he grew fonder and fonder of him, and, forgetting for a moment the matter in hand, respectfully asked Petunikoff: "Where did you study?" "In the technological institute. Why?" answered the other, smiling: "Nothing. Only . . . excuse me!" The soldier lowered his head, and then suddenly exclaimed, "What a splendid thing education is! Science--light. My brother, I am as stupid as an owl before the sun . . . Your honor, let us finish this job." With an air of decision he stretched out his hand to Petunikoff and said: "Well, five hundred?" "Not more than one hundred roubles, Egor Tereutievitch."